~ Thinking outside the box about Cambodia

The nephews – Part VII

Sometimes it becomes annoying to rehash the same subject over and over again for both the writer and the reader.

But sometimes also one can’t help it because corruption, nepotism, abuse of power and fraud are everywhere and everyday issue in Cambodia. They are so ingrained in the bone morrow of the administration that they have become the indisputable and absolute rules.

There isn’t a day that local newspapers, both Khmer and foreign languages, doesn’t tell the public the stories of all sorts of corruption. The strangest thing, however, is the silence of the administration in addressing each and every issue that was reported. The silence reflects without a doubt the conspiracy and the collusion between all branches of the administration including the justice which, hand in hand, participate shamelessly and sinfully in the whole scheme of corruption throughout the country.

You, Kacvey, have certainly come across, inter alia, these events in the local media:

– the “ghosts” workers in the national assembly as well as in every public office or agency;

– the still unresolved story of the murder of a wealthy man by the the chef-de-cabinet of the ministry of defense;

– a provincial governor with absolute nepotism appointed his relative and friend to high level posts in the province;

– the failed development of Camko City and the mystery around the multi-millions US dollars project called “U City”, and

– the most bizarre, ridiculous, farcical and wacky story about a general going to a sports club with all sorts of jewelry valued at about a quarter million of US dollars on him and that was stolen from his locker!!!

Here are a kind of non-sequitur questions for you:

– If Cambodia is not a lawless country, how comes that the law is not upheld by the country officials, including prosecutors and judges?

– How do you expect the world to take Cambodia seriously? And reversely how do you expect Cambodia to be a responsible and respectable country in the world forum, Davos or wherever?

– Is this the confirmation of what William Shakespeare once said: “Lawless are they that make their wills their law”?

Kacvey, when you’ll have got the answers, here is an example on how corruption is addressed in the United States (1) whence come a number among the 68+55 deputies and high-ranking government officials, and (2) where the institutional democracy has been so much looked up to especially by the minority leader. The Speaker of the New York State Assembly has been a few days ago arrested for – please read carefully – “corruption”, and now awaiting indictment. This is shaking up the political climate in not only New York State but also everywhere where government officials are found to be corrupted, whatever the type of corruption is. The State of Virginia had already shown its example in 2014 with the trial of its governor. And something is now brewing in the sate of Oregon.